Our century has been more productive than any other in this respect.

This may be because we are far enough removed in time from early stages in the
development of the mecanical age to be able to see more clearly some of the
problems involved with and to realize some of the implications, both for
individuals and for the society.

Technology is undergoing a critical transition. We are surrounded by the outward

manifestations of the culmination of the mechanical age. Yet at tre same time, th
mecanical machine -which can be most easily be defined as an imitation of our
muscles- is losing its dominating position among the tools of mindkind; while
electronic and chemical devices -which imitate the processes of the brain and
nervous system- are becoming increasingly important.

ition is dedicated to the mechanical machine,

the great creator and destroyer, at a difficult moment
in its life when, for the first time, its reign is threatened
by other tools.
It would be childish to believe that the greatest geniuses
of our time have amused themselves with illusory games
and have wilfully disguised their thought. However
bizarre their great games may seem, they have made
apparent in fiery characters the major myth in which is
written the fourfold tragedy of our age: the Gordian
knot of the clash among mechanization, terror, eroti
cism, and religion or anti-religion.
These are the portentous alarm signals that they are
sending out to us, from the heights of their observatories
erected atop high towers, at the heart of the modern
tempest.
Michel Carrouges, Les Machines celibataires
Upon this faith in Art as the organic heart quality of the
scientific frame of things, I base a belief that we must
look to the artist brain, of all brains, to grasp the signi
ficance to society of this thing we call the Machine . . .
Frank Lloyd Wright, address to the Chicago
Arts and Cr

ng, quickly becomes the commonplace of today.

This limited concept, however, is relatively recent.
Historically, machines have often been regarded as
toys, or as agents of magic, marvel, and fantasy. For
philosophers, they have served as symbols and meta
phors. Since the beginning of the mechanical age
and the time of the Industrial Revolution, some have
looked to machines to bring about progress toward
Utopia; others have feared them as the enemies of
humanistic values, leading only to destruction. Most of
these contradictory ideas persist, in one form or another,
in the twentieth century and find their reflection in art.
Machines may be loosely defined as tools composed
of several parts working together. They have a twofold
ancestry. On the one hand, they develop from the prac
tical experience of laborers or artisans seeking new
ways to ease their work or perfect their skills. Their
other line of descent leads from abstract thought and
pure science to applied science and invention.
The Greeks, heirs of the technics of earlier civiliza
tions, were the first to develop machines. All the simpler
mechanical principles were known to them, such as the
wheel and axle, the wedge, the lever, the gear, the
screw, and the pulley; and they had a great knowledge
of hydraulics and pneumatics. They applied these prin
ciples as occasion required but never adapted them
for mass production. (The producing machine, in fact,
appeared relatively late in the history of technology.)
Siegfried Giedion has gone so far as to state: "In a
practical direction, the sole systematic application of the
ancients' physical knowledge was to warfare."
It was the Greeks who first systematically investigated
natural forces and formulated scientific laws. Freed from
the domination of a priestly class, which in earlier Meso-
potamian and Mediterranean cultures had guarded for
itself all learning, they joyfully pursued knowledge for
its own sake, irrespective of its practical uses. The same
word, techne, meant both art and technics. In spite of
their love of the beautiful and the practical, the Greeks
nevertheless ranked artists and technicians far below
philosophers in their hierarchy.
Aristotle took a wider view.